“Nature, like man, sometimes weeps from gladness.” ~Benjamin Disraeli

The last few weeks have been a wild and awesome whirlwind.

I attended my first conference ever at BlogWorld Expo in New York City and got to meet some of my best buddies in the blogosphere like Farnoosh Brock, Srini Rao and Bernardo Mendez, while meeting a ton of new people and making many new friends.

The following week I traveled to Portland, Oregon for the first time for the World Domination Summit, survived jumping out of a perfectly good airplane with over 40 other World-Domineers, connected with even more of my best buddies in the blogosphere and made so many close friendships that I was completely oozing with pure gratitude and humble happiness.

I got to spend some time talking and hanging out with the men and women I’ve long admired, many of whose blogs and paths I’ve tried to emulate.

Those A-Lister’s include Leo Babauta, Charlie Gilke, Chris Guillebeau himself, Jonathan Fields and Danielle LaPorte (who remembered me from our Live FireStarter Call months ago… and even took me by the hand at the WDS Opening Ceremony… be still my heart).

And this is not even to mention the genuine and awesome friendships that formed with other bloggers and world-changers like Molly Mahar, Jenny Blake, Steve Kamb, Jacob Sokol, my WDS-roommate Matt Langdon, Laura Roeder and Corbett Barr, Josh Millburn and Joel Runyon, Brandon Sutton and Nathin Agin, Shannon Whitehead and Jeanie Witcraft, and Ev’yan Nasman, watching the likes of Jonathan Mead and Karol Gadja duke it out over intense air-hockey match-ups after 2 AM, and so many others that I suddenly felt like I had known for my entire life.

And this past Sunday (June 12th), I woke up to the news that my interview with CBS Sunday Morning at BlogWorld Expo made it on national television — five whole seconds of pure, uninterrupted fame, baby!

I think I started a revolution by accident…

And finally, over this past week I’ve watched my first ever blog post go truly “viral” as so many of you, including new friends and fellow conference-goers, really connected with my “non-speech” called, How to Lead Without Followers: The World Domination Summit Talk I Never Gave.

Based upon your incredible, powerful and humbling responses to that piece, I’m starting to think I started a revolution by accident. In lieu of all of these amazing developments, not to mention the incredible encouragement and positive motivation I’ve received from the past few weeks…

I have officially decided to begin writing my alternative leadership book, Lead Without Followers!

I will self-publish the book as a professionally designed, “beautiful to look at” and “mind-blowing to read” e-book.

It will be published in Adobe PDF, Amazon Kindle, and iPad formats. Maybe I’ll also self-publish a limited edition of physical books through a print-on-demand service, which will be individually hand-signed and numbered in a “special edition” design style.

Would you dig that? Let me know.

My decision to write my leadership book comes after nearly 3 years of the pursuit of publishing it through traditional standards, which has included being rejected nearly 200 times from literary agents as I pursued a book contract through a traditional publishing house.

And, who knows, as Danielle LaPorte can certainly attest, a sexy mega-book contract might follow depending on how awesome Lead Without Followers will be when it gets published online.

But to be honest, that’s not my goal.

My goal is to write an amazing testament to YOU… each of you, every powerhouse for good — all of you hard-working, quiet leaders in your own lives, each genuine leader in your own rite.

I’ve learned so much in my journey, and I’m finally ready for you to experience the heart and soul of my Being, the bread and butter of my purpose, the very thing that awoke me to my purpose: this alternative leadership philosophy that I call, Lead Without Followers.

I promise you, it will be the absolute best thing that I can put forth, and the most immense value that your hard-earned, well-deserved money can buy.

It’s been a wild ride, and we’re just gettin’ started

Suffice it to say that things have picked up quite rapidly in the span of a few weeks!

It’s funny, I’ve learned a lot about the ups and downs of this journey over the last two years. You’ll go through disappointing lulls wherein you agonizingly wrack your brain over and over again about the direction of your path and where to go and what to do… but if you stick through it with determined patience, openness and positivity, every so often things gel together and click in a serendipitous way that truly humbles you.

One more announcement in line with this observation is…

My amazing buddy Molly Mahar from Stratejoy and I have officially begun to plan an epic, high-end online seminar / e-course on leadership. We’ll be taking an “alternative leadership” angle on how to be a leader in your own right and lead boldly and proudly in your own life.

You’ll learn how lead without followers, get an excellent workbook and tons of goodies, and be able to meet and learn from some of the most innovative and impressive minds in the world today on genuine leadership and how to be a uniquely “you” leader, in your walk of life.

How amazing does that sound?!

We’re starting to work hard, right away (as in, literally, as of TODAY) and we’re targeting a September/October launch. Stay tuned, we’ll have special early-bird signups and probably affiliate opportunities too!

Awesome things are developing fast. We’ve got a lot to work on, but I’m very motivated to do this all on your behalf. Honestly and truly, the best part of this journey is YOU.

So as I push on, consider every moment of my hard work and carrying onward down this path as a testament and sincere thank you to you for being you.